The regular season is here, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are taking their practices at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, formerly known and still referred to as the ‘South Side’ facility of Heinz Field. While the real work is now upon us, there is plenty left to be done.
And there are plenty of questions left unanswered as well. The offseason is just really the beginning phase of the answer-seeking process, which is lasts all the way through the Super Bowl for teams fortunate enough to reach that far.
You can rest assured that we have the questions, and we will be monitoring the developments in the regular season and beyond looking for the answers as we look to evaluate the makeup of the Steelers as they wade through a regular season in which they are, at least supposed to be, among the favorites to win the Super Bowl.
Question: Game Edition – Will Mike Tomlin get his 100th regular season win as the head coach of the Steelers?
The Pittsburgh Steelers turned to an unheralded young coordinator to replace Bill Cowher when the veteran head coach retired following the 2006 season. That man was Mike Tomlin, who in 2008 became the youngest head coach to ever win the Super Bowl.
10 years on, Tomlin is on the doorstep of his 100th victory in the regular season with the Steelers. Given that this is his 10th season, it will mean that his teams will secure an average record of at least 10-6 over the course of the past decade, which is pretty good.
Today marks the 157th regular season game in Tomlin’s career as a head coach, all in Pittsburgh, and he has posted a 99-57 record in that span, giving him a winning percentage of .635 up to this point. A win today would make him the 40th head coach in NFL history to secure 100 victories, and would make him the third—consecutive, mind you—head coach to accomplish that feat with the Steelers.
Assuming that Tomlin does indeed win his 100th game today, he will have the 10th-best winning percentage of all time among head coaches to win that many games, which, as you might guess, would put him in some pretty lofty company that includes names such as Shula, Halas, Belichick, Brown, and Madden.
After getting out to a very promising start to the 2016 season with a 4-1 record through five games, Tomlin’s team has found that they will have to scrape and claw the rest of the way after they were hit with an injury to their quarterback that coincided with a four-game skid that put them below .500 for the first time this year.
But they have rebounded recently with three straight wins, and are looking to close out the year, if possible, winning their last season and going 11-5 on the year. That mission starts this afternoon in Buffalo, for win number four in a row, and win number 100 in the past 10 years, all for Tomlin.
